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Week 6 Overview & Highlights
- bliss5
- Jul 26
- 3 min read
Total Miles to date: 1,586
Weekly miles: 328
Route Overview: We took ND-46, and US-283 into Jamestown. Then paved side roads to Valley City where we picked up I-94 (freeway!!) to Tower City. Continued on I-94 to the Wheatland exit, where we took paved side roads and old Co-10 into Fargo, then meandered to Moorhead Mn. Then old Co-52 to Barnesville, Mn-108 to Pelican Rapids, and Co-3 (Otter Tail road) into Fergus Falls. Picked up the Central Lakes bike path, took that and the Wobegon Lake trail to Freeport, where we detoured to Two Rivers Lake county park.
Highlights: First off, a very happy birthday to Bliss! We celebrated by having a short day (41 miles) and eating at a Chinese buffet. In Tower City we stayed at the cutest B&B, Joanne took such good care of us, dinner and breakfast, and several of her homemade baked treats.
In North Dakota the old hwy 10 is paved in parts, and is loose gravel in parts, and is the only road besides the freeway that goes into Fargo. The gravel has been hard on Bliss’ joints so we chose to take the freeway for many miles going into Fargo. Google says it’s legal. The shoulder was really wide, surprisingly very clean, and as far as a freeway goes there wasn’t a lot of traffic. We also had a tail wind, so we were zipping along (fast for us).
Terri is a warmshowers host in Moorhead, Mn, that doesn’t cycle, but heard about warmshowers and wanted her kids to meet people that were traveling on big adventures. She is very high energy, just go go go. She owned and ran a “fancy” restaurant for 10 years, and cooked us a very delicious, big meal! We both ate way too much. Her husband Drew, and daughter Claire are pretty quiet in comparison, we all had a great time chatting. Beautiful house, with a huge grand piano(Terri even played for us!) in the living room. Our own bedroom was so comfortable, and we had our own big bathroom.
We got chased by our first dog since Browning Mt. It was a Rottweiler and had bad intentions in its eyes. Usually Robert will shout “hey”, or “bad dog”, and they back off. If that doesn’t work, he will squeeze the water bottle and the shock of being hit by water stops them. Well, the new water bottles we have don’t squirt very well, and this dog looked like it wasn’t going to stop until it got a bite in. This is the first time we’ve brought pepper spray on a ride. Robert was fumbling in his front pack and just couldn’t find it. At the same time he was eyeing the dog, and luckily it couldn’t figure out how to run and bite at the same time. Whew, the dog was out of shape, and it tired out. A mile or so later we stopped, Robert found the spray and velcroed it to his handle bar. Hopefully we won’t have to use it, but we’re not going to be surprised again. Later in the week another dog started chasing us and Robert let out such a loud “hey!”, that he felt it in his chest. That dog stopped instantly!
Warmshowers hosts Joshua and April live right on the Otter Tail river near Fergus Falls, MN, and their backyard is covered in wildflowers. It is gorgeous and so relaxing.
We then had two nights of wild camping (free is always good!) but the heat makes camping not as enjoyable. The one night we left the rain flap off as there were no clouds and we needed the air flow… but of course it then stormed about 1 a.m. and we had rush out to put on the flap. Bliss sadly left her zipper open a few inches and was woken up at 5 a.m. to ants crawling all over her.
A very sad thing to share; it is hot, and there are a lot of lakes here in Minnesota (oh yeah, goodbye North Dakota), however the accessible ones have been a little scummy. Demoralizing! We have ridden Minnesota before, it is beautiful and the bike paths are amazing. But it has been very hot and humid, and we have been besieged by ants and other biting little pests. Bliss says the riding in Minnesota is great, but the stopping, not so great.
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